Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/314

 Chancellor nor any of his colleagues had been able to break down his argument. Truly a pertinacious heretic, as Netter says of him in this connection!

Nevertheless it must have been a very unwelcome fact for the Reformer and his friends that he should have been condemned, even in this indirect fashion, by the Chancellor of the university with which he was so closely associated, and where he was held in such high honour by a majority of masters and students. The effect of the condemnation must have been greatly weakened by the evident unfairness of putting six friars and two monks on a committee of twelve, selected by a secular clergyman, to inquire into the orthodoxy of a man who on independent grounds had had so many passages of arms with the regular clergy. The University at large appears to have taken this view somewhat decidedly; and thereafter, for at least another twelve-month, the authority of Wyclif amongst his Oxford adherents was greater than ever. Some of them, no doubt, fell away from their allegiance when they found that the authorities were going against him, but he clearly had a strong party up to the middle of 1382. The successor of Berton in the chancellorship was a friend of Wyclif's, Robert Rygge, and no doubt the state of public feeling influenced the selection of a Wycliffite. It should be mentioned that Berton was subsequently credited with having approximated in some measure to the position of the man whom he had condemned.

Wyclif himself had no idea of sitting down calmly under a condemnation pronounced by his personal